Last month, we wrote about Elecrow introducing CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 laptop and electronics learning kit for its launch on Kickstarter crowdfunding website. The company has now sent one of its kits to CNX Software for evaluation and review. I’ll start by checking out the content of the package, and boot it up, before publishing a more detailed review in a few weeks. The package is fairly big and highlights it’s made for kids over 8 years old with close to 100 course resources and over 20 electronics modules. The back of the package list the main features and package contents with for example a 11.6″ Full HD display, Raspberry Pi 4 4GB board running a customized (Linux) system or Retropie for game emulation, electronics components and modules like servos and motors, as well as some resources for gaming including two USB gamepads. The first things we get when opening […]
CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 Laptop Doubles as Electronics Learning Kit (Crowdfunding)
CrowPi portable learning kit for Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and Pi Zero boards was launched in 2018. It comes with a 7″ display, several sensors, buttons, a breadboard, and more all packed in a small suitcase. Elecrow has now started a new crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to fund the second generation portable electronics learning kit: CrowPi2 which looks much more like a laptop than a suitcase found in the first model thanks to a large display, and a detachable keyboard placed on top of the electronic prototyping/learning area. It’s also more powerful thanks to the latest Raspberry Pi 4 SBC. CrowPi2 specifications: Compatible Raspberry Pi boards – Raspberry Pi 3B/B+, Raspberry Pi 4 Display – 11.6-inch 1920×1080 IPS screen Camera – 2MP camera Audio – Built-in microphone and stereo speaker; 3.5mm audio jack Keyboard – 2.4GHz detachable wireless keyboard (QWERTY only) with touchpad Sensors and Modules under the keyboard: Displays […]
megaAI 4K AI Camera Board Features Movidius Myriad X VPU (Crowdfunding)
megaAI 4K AI camera board reminds me of Kendryte K210 based boards such as Maixduino used for computer vision for tasks such as object tracking or face recognition, but instead of just handling QVGA at around 15 to 18 fps, megaAI can supports inference at 4K resolution up to 30 fps. The tiny board can achieve this feat by leveraging the 4 TOPS of AI processing power delivered by Intel Movidius Myriad X VPU (Vision Processing Unit) while consuming only around 2.5 Watts. megaAI board specifications: AI Accelerator – Intel Movidius Myriad X VPU delivering up to 4 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) Camera – 12 MP 4056×3040 Auto-Focus (8cm-∞) camera with 81 degrees horizontal Field of View (HFOV) Video RAW Output – 4K @ 60FPS or 12MP @ 30FPS (with USB3.1 Gen2 Host) Hardware Image Encoding – 12 MP JPEG encoding Hardware Video Encoding: 4K H.265 encoding at 30 […]
EasyDK Open Source Cloud Media Platform is Made for Raspberry Pi 3/4
French startup MMPhygital has developed EasyDK (Easy Digital Key) open-source, Python-based cloud media platform designed for Raspberry Pi 3 & 4 SBC’s that allows users to manage and view media content from local storage or cloud storage (2GB free) using a web management interface. The solution acts as a media center with the interface providing access to movies, video streaming, and photos, but you can also display documents such as Microsoft Office files or PDF presentations. Other features include: Dynamic display – manage a network of connected screens remotely (similar to Digital Signage solution) Remote office- Connect to a remote computer using AnyDesk plugin Add-Ons – Add your own module Cloud management – Control EasyDK remotely using the cloud platform to deploy media, launch content automatically, etc.. BLE / IP remote control – Use your smartphone as a Bluetooth or IP remote control Wireless external hard drive Secure Internet Access […]
Connect up to 32 Relays to Raspberry Pi with a Stackable 4-Relay Board (Crowdfunding)
People have been playing with off-the-shelf relays on Raspberry Pi boards ever since it was released in 2012, and over the years, some companies have maybe Raspberry Pi-specific relay boards such as Strawberry4Pi and Pi-OT. Two years ago, Sequent Microsystems introduced a stackable 8-Relay board enabling up to 64 relays to be connected to a single Raspberry Pi board. The 8-relay board only supported 24V/2.5A, and the company is now back on Kickstarter with a 4-relay board with 250V/10A line-switching relays that can offer up to 32 relays by stacking 8 boards connected to one Raspberry Pi board via the 40-pin I/O header. The board comes with four Songle 250V/10A relays, 3-pin pluggable connectors that accept 18 to 22 AWG wires, and a 5V/3A power supply is recommended. If you stack multiple relay board a beefier power supply may be required. Here are some power consumption numbers provided by the […]
ESP RainMaker Eases Cloud Integration & Mobile App Development for ESP32-S2 SoC
Espressif Systems is well-known for its low-cost, well-supported WiFI and Bluetooth SoC for IoT products and projects. But in recent years, the company has also come up with application-specific development boards and corresponding software frameworks to help customer develop their own. Those boards include ESP32-LyraTD-MSC for smart audio applications, or for ESP32-S2-Kaluga-1 multimedia applications using display and camera. The company is now offering another solution to help makers integrate ESP32-S2 secure WiSoC with the cloud and create a mobile app. Meet ESP RainMaker. Specifically, ESP RainMaker provides four main components:: Device Agent SDK to perform network provisioning, OTA updates and facilitate communication with the cloud. Based on the ESP-IDF SDK. Amazon’s AWS powered Transparent Cloud Middleware makes the device’s attributes accessible to the user’s phone applications or other third-party services via RESTful APIs. iOS/Android phone apps to configure and manage the connected device. The apps are “self-adapting”, meaning they can […]
Sania Box Raspberry Pi 4 based DIY Kit is Designed for STEM Education (Crowdfunding)
Sania Box, A Special Kind of DIY RPi4 Based Kit The 13-year-old Sania Jain is a young entrepreneur, published writer and tech aficionado who now offers an embedded computer kit called Sania Box. The Raspberry Pi 4 based embedded system kit comes with an add-on board and has been designed to develop coding skills in anyone 8 years old or more, and for learning IoT, STEM, and for all kinds of DIY fun. Background Some DIY RPi-based kits can be found in our archives, such as the Piper Computer Kit 2 made for children’s education, but there’s now another option thanks to Sania Jain who has been designing, building, and writing in the STEM arena for some time. Sania Jain’s accomplishments are amazing, and look to be just her beginning in STEM-based endeavors. A Concept With Wide Reach The Sania Box was conceived by Sania Jain and built by Moonshot […]
MarsCat is a Bionic Cat Powered by Raspberry Pi 3 (Crowdfunding)
Elephant Robotics MarsCat is a robotic cat that tries to mimic the behavior of actual cats through artificial intelligence. It can have a life of its own roaming the house, and you can also interact with it as it will play with toys/teasers through its camera, and you can send voice command to ask it to walk, run, look at you, be quiet. etc… but the trick is that it may not always obey like a real cat, and its personality will evolve depending on how you interact with it. Beside being a bionic pet, MarsCat can also be used to teach/learn robotics as the company will release an open-source SDK allowing you to change the Python code running on the Raspberry Pi 3 board powering the cat, and access API’s to control the camera, microphone, touch sensors, as well as the 16 servos connected to a Microchip ATMega2560 MCU […]